


this tie could invert to be a noose instead

by benshaws



Series: such recovery [6]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:03:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benshaws/pseuds/benshaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He leaves.</p><p>He leaves because he has no idea how to do anything else. It’s not that he doesn’t have anything to say. No, he has hundreds of petty accusations and comebacks and questions he’d just love to <i>scream</i> but that doesn’t mean he knows how to <i>voice</i> any of them. They’re trapped, stuck against the roof of his mouth, jammed in the very back of his throat, and keeping him silent. His mind’s moving a mile a minute, and he can barely keep up with his thought processes, let alone make them into coherent sentences which won’t have Combeferre heading for the door in realisation that Grantaire is past the point of pity, past being saved and humoured.</p><p>So, he stays silent, and he leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this tie could invert to be a noose instead

**Author's Note:**

> I basically spent the entire time writing this regretting my life decisions. This was going to be around 3k and then became this 8k monstrosity and I don't even know _how_. Also without [Paige](http://anglosaxonmonk.tumblr.com/) I'd probably still be writing this and having no idea what I was doing. Also everyone love her because she has to put up with me going into 'bUT IS THIS IN CHARACTER' break downs. They happen.
> 
> Like a lot.
> 
> Title from To Kill a King's song 'Bloody Shirt'. Un-beta'd so expect some mistakes!

He leaves.

He leaves because he has no idea how to do anything else. It’s not that he doesn’t have anything to say. No, he has hundreds of petty accusations and comebacks and questions he’d just love to _scream_ but that doesn’t mean he knows how to _voice_ any of them. They’re trapped, stuck against the roof of his mouth, jammed in the very back of his throat, and keeping him silent. His mind’s moving a mile a minute, and he can barely keep up with his thought processes, let alone make them into coherent sentences which won’t have Combeferre heading for the door in realisation that Grantaire is past the point of pity, past being saved and humoured.

So, he stays silent, and he leaves.

He grabs his phone, and a packet of cigarettes, and his jacket, and he closes the door without the melodramatic slam he _wants_ to. It’s quiet movement, ending with a solemn click, and then Combeferre’s put behind him and the corridor in front. 

Mostly, he just feels tired.

He’s tired of his head, at the sheer noise of it, and how tight it makes his throat feel. He’s tired of wanting a drink. He’s fucking exhausted at the hard coil of anger stored up in his gut, greedily waiting for a day like today. An anger that launches vehemently at Combeferre, and Enjolras, and at broken promises, and at the world in general before he has time to make it stop. It latches onto the idea, turns it over and over in his head until he doesn’t know why his hands are shaking - for the betrayal, for the rage, or for the anxiety.

He’s tired of being angry at Combeferre already, knowing he owes him too much to mean it, and loving him enough to feel guilt wracked, shaken down to the bone. He’s angry at being angry. He wants to smash the guilt into the ground, and he wants to cry in the middle of the street he’s walking on and not getting fucking stared at because that sort of behaviour is only appropriate when you’re a fucking child.

Grantaire’s mainly angry at himself. Snarling, primal and unguarded hate turned inward at being _that fucking stupid_ , because Grantaire is many things - does many things - he paints, he sketches, he makes shoddy thrown together meals and sleeps on the right side of the bed, but he doesn’t _trust_ people. It was a rule as much as Enjolras had been a rule. Both utterly broken, the shattered pieces of those promises lodged into him like glass shards (and he’d fallen through a patio door once so he _knew_ how that felt. It was not a sudden pain, but more of a realisation when staring down at the growing patches of red, and only then did the pain flare up like a fever).

Foolishly, he’d trusted Combeferre. Because he’d been there on the nights when Grantaire was at his worst; he’d seen him cry, seen the anxiety attacks and the vomit dashed over the insides of the toilet. He’d been there in the mornings after a particularly bad night, when Grantaire was tired enough to be calm, and walked sluggishly around in the sunlight, not saying much and curling up with a sketchbook, shied away like his entire body was an open, tender bruise. Those were the days he didn’t let Combeferre touch him.

Like the notes Jehan left him in the pages of his borrowed books, jammed between sentences and tucked away into the margins, trust had settled in between the nooks and crannies of their relationship, his carefully built guards forgotten. 

He couldn’t hate himself much more for that. 

Grantaire’s trust is hard earned. In fact, there are very few of their friends that he trusts at all. It isn’t that they aren’t good people, or that they don’t deserve his trust, but Grantaire is a cynic through and through, and he’d had enough shit in his life to keep everyone at arms length (or, more likely, the span of a football pitch). 

Eponine had been the first to earn it, but that was a given. She’d grown up with him in the crumbling council houses, exploring in the weeds of the back garden and kicking footballs out into the main road. They stole food from the newsagent because that was the culture they lived in and who knew when dinner would be on the table. They grew up too fast because Grantaire had a little sister, and Eponine had Azelma and Gavroche, and their parents taught them the meaning of unreliable.

It wasn’t a terrible life, except his mother had a tendency to steal and his father got sloppy with his fists when work was low. He grew up on a vocabulary of shouted swear words that were thrown around the streets because everyone knew each other and everyone was sort of loud. They raised hell with the kids on the street, learned to punch after they’d learned to walk because if for a second those kids thought you were weak they’d walk all over _you_. They got bullied together for their ratty school uniforms and they prodded one another’s bruises rather than tend to them, brandishing them like battle scars.

As they got older they’d sneak in drinks before school and smoke cigarettes just off campus, in the cemetery tucked at the back of the building. With more age the more weight that was distributed between them, a natural balancing act. They leaned into one another’s burdens, walked their siblings to school, found one another drunk in the dark, a steady push and pull. 

Now, they knew one another blind, and could probably compete with Combeferre and Enjolras’ magic mind meld. Except they were brasher, blunter, it seemed. If one had a sore wound they’d happily dig their fingers in it until something would give. It didn’t mean they didn’t find a comfort in one another, they did, but the ability to jab at one another was easily the greatest comfort to them. They were honest with one another and didn’t bother with bullshit. Yet, that didn’t mean they talked about everything either. When they weren’t communicating with sarcasm they were communicating with silence, because sometimes things didn’t _need_ to be said.

Grantaire hadn’t told her about his feelings for Combeferre when they’d begun to grow, and it wasn’t like he had to. One day Combeferre had popped around in the morning after his shift at the hospital, exhausted but smiling, with a bag full of groceries. He’d made breakfast, while he kept rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses and smothering yawns into the back of his hand which had Grantaire feeling guilty. When they were done, and after they’d eaten, Grantaire had waved offhandedly to his room and told him to crash at his apartment rather than taking the trek back to his place.

After Combeferre had gone, and Grantaire was staring at the dishes he’d have to clear up, Eponine had looked at him across the table and said, “What are we going to do about this mess.” She hadn’t been talking about the washing up.

He’d trusted Claquesous, for a time, when he’d thought it was love and didn’t realise the man was stealing from his bank account.

Jehan had been the third to capture it, even if he’d not known Jehan nearly as long as Eponine. They’d met a few years ago, when Grantaire was just starting university and Jehan was doing the same. He’d been reading Aethiopis when the slender light-haired man had flopped into a chair opposite him and eagerly asked Grantaire’s opinion on it, until they were arguing over Greek literature and Greek myth, Grantaire passionately, Jehan bright eyed. After that, Jehan had said Grantaire should be in his classics class, to which Grantaire had shrugged him off as ungracefully as Grantaire could, and then they were half-tentative friends.

Grantaire soon learned that Jehan only looked delicate; plastered into his usually standard black skinny jeans and jumpers that were too big, feet planted in heavy leather boots and hair falling loose and long over his shoulder. He could pack a punch, bite a word out, draw blood if need be. Yet, he learnt other things. He learnt that Jehan disliked his skinny-ness where Grantaire loved the sudden jut of his shoulder blades, the hard lines of his collarbones and his pale, slim wrists. That Jehan felt uncomfortable in his skin half the time, and shucked himself into baggy tops not just in easy fashion, but for the feeling of safety. 

Grantaire drew him often, before he’d been introduced to Jehan’s friends - Enjolras, and Combeferre and all the rest. Because Jehan loved his drawings where Grantaire thought they were shit, and in his own way he thought by maybe putting Jehan onto paper he could make him love that too, see the beauty in Jehan’s sharp lines, the sudden striking angle of his jaw.

They swapped books between one another, argued literature and art. Jehan read him Keats when he was drunk and antsy, hands, and eyes, and mind, and feelings everywhere. He’d read him the entirety of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close one late summer night, until Jehan’s throat was raw and Grantaire was not crying. Grantaire taught Jehan the rough moves of kickboxing, back from the days when he still took lessons and Jehan taught Grantaire about flowers, knitting, archery - whatever whim of a hobby Jehan was into that week. 

When nights were bad Grantaire would sleep in Jehan’s bed without comment, when nights were good they played video games, or watched TV, or dragged out board games from the back of Jehan’s cupboard. By now, they knew one another well. Jehan was naturally empathic, drew in emotions like a sponge drew in liquid (good, or bad) and so he gauged Grantaire easily. On the flip side Grantaire understood the quiet tucked away parts of Jehan - the tendency toward depression, the anxiety. Jehan was nice, too nice, almost always accompanied with a smile, but like many things about Jehan, that was only what people saw on the surface. Jehan couldn’t be singled down to one characteristic, although people made a damn good job of presuming he could be. They marked him as the poet, as the romantic, as having that smile. They didn’t bother to understand Jehan’s anger or his insecurities. 

It was the same with Grantaire - known readily around campus as the guy who could win any alcohol based competition, and who would turn up at your party uninvited, and was plastered with jagged little scars (and was obsessed with that one guy, oh what was his name, the one with the blonde hair). The masses constructed them down to their base elements, and Jehan and Grantaire took solace in knowing they weren’t just their stereotypes. They trusted one another’s judgement on their flaws and their inconsistencies, mutually, carefully, with affection and fondness and something deeper than that. A trust that didn’t need to be discussed for what it was.

He’d given Combeferre that trust and Combeferre had thrown it back in his face. Grantaire hates himself for it, for suddenly giving away his confidence so easily and too quickly. He can’t believe he’d be that _stupid_ , but how else are you meant to feel about a guy who sat through the dark stages of your recovery? He hates everything about this.

Grantaire can’t _believe_ Combeferre would do it, and he can’t believe he’s even thinking that, rebelling against his cynicism. Combeferre had broken his word, the promise Grantaire had made him keep because it _mattered_. 

The thought of Enjolras terrified him - Grantaire’s previous feelings, what Enjolras would _do_ , whether or not he would take Combeferre away from him. Combeferre and Enjolras had always been close, all it would need was one to get into a relationship with someone else to see that they had always been in love with the other. Then all it would need was a few words from Enjolras to put said relationship to an end. He was shaken and scared by it, but the promise had grounded Grantaire enough to feel _safe_. Even if Enjolras had somehow found out, through one of their friends or by walking in on them one day, at least it would be an accident, no one the cause or the blame. 

Except Combeferre had gone to Enjolras and _fucking told him_. Casually, as though the promise Grantaire had barely been able to ask for had been a passing fancy. It didn’t matter if Enjolras had given his consent or whatever the fuck he’d said to Combeferre to make him think that he was okay with it (something which Grantaire didn’t believe for a second). It was fact that Combeferre had gone _back on his word_. He felt abruptly disconnected from the tentative _thing_ between them, a cord snapped out of the wall socket, because if Combeferre thought Grantaire would be so okay with this turn of events did he really know him at all?

All Grantaire feels is betrayed. He feels tired. 

The morning air is sharp and too much when he makes it out onto the pavement, a crisp and cold autumn morning where a few weeks ago there had been summer. He must look pathetic; walking around in what can only be called his pyjamas, an old band shirt pulled over a pair of tracksuit bottoms, and his denim jacket thrown on top of that. He certainly feels it, toes moving uncomfortably in his leather boots, because Grantaire can’t fucking sleep with socks on whatsoever so his bare feet are snagging on all the little places he otherwise wouldn’t notice. His soles stick uncomfortably to the bottom of his shoes because when your sort of boyfriend (Combeferre had used the word _dating_ as well, and Grantaire wonders when that happened, another thing they’ve never spoken about) brings up a pile of shit like that, you don’t really think about the little details other than the _out_.

He tugs his jacket closer around him, shoves his hands into his pockets for the warmth and to trace the curve of his phone with his fingers. Grantaire lingers on the thoughts of bars that open this early, maps out the off licences with his mind, thinks about the 24/7 supermarket in the shopping centre half-heartedly. Disgust curls in his stomach about who and what he is. What he was.

He gets out his phone and texts Combeferre, “Don’t bother checking the bars for me, I’ll be at Jehan’s.”

-

Jehan takes one look at Grantaire on his doorstep before quickly pulling him inside, hand tight around his elbow until Grantaire is close enough to wrap his arms around. Grantaire sinks into the touch, burying his face against Jehan’s neck and curling his arms back around him, breathing in his smell, warm, comforting and familiar. 

When Jehan pulls back he looks Grantaire steadily in the eye, concern dashed over his features. “Are you sober?” He asks, quiet and tentative, and Grantaire can’t be bothered to be offended today. He’d be asking the same thing too.

Without comment, Grantaire holds out his hands, palms down, only to realise they’re shaking. He laughs at the image of himself, retracts them back to his side where they don’t stop trembling. “Bad example,” He explains, avoiding Jehan’s eyes, gaze flickering agitatedly around the room. He shoves his hands under his armpits, hiding them away like a criminal with red palms. 

After a moment, Jehan’s hands are back on him, this time sliding down Grantaire’s arms. “Courfeyrac’s here,” He murmurs, conspiratorially close, making Grantaire raise an eyebrow. Jehan waves a hand at him, then brings it back, dotting comforting little touches to his forearms. “Your emotional turmoil first, mine later,” Jehan smiles, then steps back.

He tilts his head in the direction of his bedroom. “Wait in the kitchen, I’ll make sure he leaves.”

Grantaire doesn’t say “You don’t have to” because he knows it’s a lie. Courfeyrac is the last person he wants to see, other than Enjolras, because Courfeyrac is the third of Enjolras’ and Combeferre’s musketeers. His caring is also a lot louder than he needs, and Grantaire is sure Courfeyrac would ask him what was wrong and then Grantaire would end up biting back something like, “Go ask Combeferre I’m sure he’d love to tell you too”, which would just open up a whole new bag of cats. So, Grantaire does what he’s told, and retreats into the corner of the kitchen, fiddling aimlessly with a pack of green tea he’d found on the sideboard. He picks it up like he’s going to read it, but all he does is stare blankly at the back of it until the sharp pin pricks of Courfeyrac’s and Jehan’s voices are stopped by the sound of the door closing.

A minute later, Jehan pokes his head around the door. 

“Bed?” Jehan asks, a tiredness Grantaire has seen before around his eyes. Grantaire nods in return, digging his teeth into his bottom lip and drifting in Jehan’s shadow toward the bedroom, pulling his boots off on the way, and throwing his jacket over Jehan’s couch in a reverse of this morning. 

He expects a mess of sheets, if Courfeyrac had stayed the night, perhaps the smell of sex in the air, but when he follows Jehan into the room there’s nothing. The covers on the bed don’t look any more or any less crumpled than usual and Grantaire knows he should feel surprised but his head’s _occupied_. 

He sinks down into the sheets that smell mainly of Jehan and vaguely of Courfeyrac’s deodorant and gravitates automatically toward the other, until his head is resting against Jehan’s chest and Jehan’s fingers are carding repetitively through his hair. They don’t speak - Jehan doesn’t automatically ask “What happened?” because there used to be nights and days where Grantaire didn’t know how to answer that. He doesn’t know how to breech the topic now, though he needs to, needs to get it out in the open and get the hazy feeling of heartache off his chest. Instead, he closes his eyes and leans into Jehan’s touch, because anxiety’s balled up in his chest, and his hands still aren’t steady, and he’s trying his best to make his head stop. 

The alcohol used to do it for him, used to numb all the thoughts down until they were a comforting blur, but he refuses to think about that. Another relapse would wipe out the only good thing he’s ever _done_. It would make Combeferre feel guilty, make Enjolras say “Maybe you shouldn’t be trying so hard with him” - it could make Combeferre leave. It would make himself feel like a failure. So, he settles for Jehan’s fingers instead, fiddling absently with his hair, occasionally rubbing against his scalp, sometimes snagging on a piece and needing to be untangled.

Eventually, Jehan murmurs, “Combeferre texted me” and “I got it just before you got here” and “He sounded worried”. 

Grantaire counters with, equally quiet and finding Jehan’s spare hand to thread their fingers together, “He told Enjolras.”

“Ah,” Jehan breathes, squeezing their fingers together tightly and pressing his nose briefly into the mess of Grantaire’s hair. 

Grantaire interrupts before Jehan wonders aloud why it matters _just so much_ , he knows Jehan understands at least half of it, can see into Grantaire’s issues with Combeferre and Enjolras and that whole mess, but he needs to make him understand the full picture. “I made him promise not to.”

“Oh,” Jehan says with more weight, moving beneath him and forcing Grantaire to pull back, to sit up a little and stare at him. Jehan’s fingers move deftly over his jaw, soft and light, as he tells him, “I’m sorry.” Grantaire squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t see Jehan’s expression as he then rubs his thumb over his cheekbone, but he can hear the bedsheets shifting against one another as Jehan repositions his weight, can feel the light stroke of his touch. 

He gasps a sharp breath through his nose and then he’s crying.

“Shh,” Jehan hushes, low in his ear as he gathers Grantaire back toward him, letting Grantaire crumple into his chest where they’re now sat opposite one another. Warm arms encase him, skinny enough that Grantaire could escape his prison bars but won’t, his cage feeling more like an anchor than a jail cell. He sobs, openly and brokenly into Jehan’s old hoodie, that’s soft and worn beneath his fingers as he grips Jehan’s sides, while Jehan let’s out comforting noises low in his throat, a hand soothing up and down Grantaire’s back.

He feels _tired_ and he doesn’t know if Jehan knows this, but it doesn’t matter, because Jehan says, “Get some sleep”, anyway.

-

He wakes up a few hours later, led out on his side with Jehan pressed against his back, an arm curled around his middle and Jehan’s fingers splayed out over Grantaire’s arms. After a few minutes of staring blankly at the wall opposite him and breathing, Jehan asks, “Are you awake?” His breath is warm against the nape of his neck.

“Yeah,” Grantaire replies, voice thick with sleep, turning over in Jehan’s arms to look at him. Jehan gazes at him back then sighs, gently bumping their foreheads together.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He murmurs, their foreheads pressed together, Jehan’s hair cascading down around them like a waterfall. Figuratively, he doesn’t want to. In reality, he doesn’t want to. In reality, he knows he _has_ to, before it drives him mad. 

“No,” He admits anyway, pulling away from Jehan and rolling his eyes briefly up toward the ceiling. “But it doesn’t change a thing. He still _broke his fucking promise._ ”

Jehan’s expression contorts, minimally, denting a frown between his eyebrows, worrying his lip slightly between his teeth. “He did.”

It would usually be Grantaire’s turn to speak, to turn and say, “How could he _do that?_ ”, but Grantaire knows Jehan too well, sees what’s lingering on the edge of Jehan’s expression. Grantaire’s gaze narrows at his friend, vehemently. “But?”

Jehan sighs, caught out on the word he had been hoping not to use. He doesn’t squirm, however, just touches Grantaire’s arm. “But, I think maybe Combeferre was trying to do the right thing, in his own way.” Grantaire opens his mouth to speak, to argue _everything wrong about that_ , but Jehan beats him too the punch. “Not that that means what he did _was_ right.”

“He knew how much it mattered to me,” Grantaire counters, hands unconsciously curling into fists. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have fucking asked, would I?”

“I know, R,” Jehan murmurs, gently, finding Grantaire’s hands and pulling them toward him until he’s opened up his palms. Jehan laces their fingers together instead. “But maybe he thought that this way you wouldn’t worry about what Enjolras thinks.”

Grantaire feels the want to _cry_ well back up in him, but covers it with a scoff, shaking his head and looking down at the sheets. “Then he doesn’t understand me at all,” He mummers, voice wet with emotion.

Jehan untangles one of their hands, touching the side of Grantaire’s face instead. “I think he wants to,” He murmurs, like a reassurance.

Grantaire shoves at his hands, tugs his hand out of Jehan’s vice like grip and sits up, dashing his hands through his hair, gripping at his skull as if he would try to wring it clean if he could. “Who’s side are you on, anyway?” He asks, snidely, petulant. Somewhere he knows it’s not fair to Jehan, but he’s hurt, hurt all over and here Jehan’s arguing Combeferre’s side when _Combeferre_ is the one in the wrong. It makes Grantaire doubt himself, makes him think “Am I just being a ridiculous fucking paranoid?” except Combeferre did go back on his word. He _did_ and reasoning doesn’t make that _forgivable_. 

Jehan sits up too, but doesn’t touch him, carefully watching him from a distance. “No one’s,” Jehan sighs, low and a little exasperated.

Grantaire glances up at him through his eyelashes, squeezing his hair harder between his fingers. “You should be on _mine_.”

“Grantaire,” Jehan breathes out, the softest reprimand you could ever get, as Grantaire drops his hands down, squeezing his fingers in his own instead, rolling his shoulders and feeling all caught in, claustrophobic. He lets go of his hands, waving them in Jehan’s general direction.

“Sorry,” He mutters, rushed out and with a shake of his head. “Sorry.”

Jehan’s expression is pretty much heartbreaking. “What did Enjolras say?”

“Apparently he’s _fine_ with it,” Grantaire says, offhanded and tired, putting his head in his hands and pressing the heels of them into his eyes. There’s still a bitterness in his voice, but it’s worn down, world-weary. “We have Apollo’s golden seal of approval.”

“You don’t believe it?” Jehan asks, that frown still carefully denting the middle of his forehead, drawing his eyebrows down and in. 

“What that Enjolras would for a second think a drunkard is good enough for his best friend?” Grantaire laughs. “No.”

“You don’t drink anymore,” Jehan corrects him, moving to sit cross legged, his arms resting over his knees. “You’re not who you were.”

“Like that would matter to Enjolras,” Grantaire scowls, lifting his hands away from his eyes and peering over them to give Jehan a look. “And anyway,” He continues. “I could be… If I wanted to.”

“But you won’t,” Jehan’s voice is soft, adamant, and Grantaire wishes he had that sort of conviction. He holds Jehan’s gaze for a moment, a heartbeat of silence, then looks away.

“Not today,” Is all he can promise. Who knows how he could relapse. A thousand things could happen between now and his next drink, or the lack of a next drink. So, he doesn’t exactly bother putting faith in himself.

“It could have been worse,” Jehan says, as though Grantaire has to be reminded. “He could have taken the news badly.”

Grantaire lets out an angry breath, glancing up at Jehan again, who looks calm, and a little bemused but is mapping out every one of Grantaire’s movements with his eyes in some hope to help him. “That’s the point, Jean,” Grantaire grates out, watching as Jehan startles a little at the use of his real name. It’s an unspoken rule, to use their usually neglected names when something’s serious. “Enjolras could have fucked everything over and Combeferre just went ahead and told him.”

“Is that why you're so scared?” 

When Grantaire doesn’t reply, remaining instead in stubborn, tense silence, Jehan sighs. “Grantaire… Enjolras is Combeferre’s best friend.”

“So that makes it right?” Grantaire snarls now, punching his fist into his thigh and wrapping his arms tightly around himself, fingers digging into his sides. “That _excuses_ him somehow? Oh, Combeferre just broke his promise but that’s alright he’s _Enjolras’ best friend_. Oh, Enjolras just acted like a cunt because someone hurt Combeferre’s feelings, but that’s alright because he’s _Enjolras’ best friend_. Oh, Enjolras just murdered a guy, but he did for Combeferre so that’s just fine being _Enjolras’ best friend_.”

Jehan doesn’t even look particularly fazed at Grantaire’s out burst, just absently tugs on the ends of his hair, wrapping it around his fingers in the only nervous little gesture gracing his body language. His eyes are sad but level, and looking at them just makes Grantaire feel more guilty. He knows he’ll end up listening to whatever Jehan has to say, no matter if he wants to hate his way through life. It’s always been the same, Eponine and Jehan as his points of reason, a north and a south where Grantaire spins on the compass in a near constant state of delirium. 

“Would you keep things from Eponine?” Jehan questions him, solemnly. Then, more quietly, “From me?”

“Yes,” Grantaire answers, in a heart beat, not ashamed of his answer because if Grantaire has one thing, one good fucking trait, it’s loyalty, and no one can take _that_ away from him. “If I made a promise like that promise, I would. So, don’t bother with that shit on me.”

Again, Jehan doesn’t bat an eyelash. This is the norm for them. “He would have found out,” Jehan argues instead, gently, prompting. “Eventually.”

Grantaire drops his hands from his side, shifts off the bed and gets up to do something. He needs to move, needs to shake the anxiety out of his limbs, needs to _breathe_. “But it wouldn’t be on _Combeferre_ ,” The name tastes like a betrayal on his tongue, makes Grantaire miss him. The sounds around Combeferre’s name have become ingrained, spoken over the kitchen counter as Combeferre poaches himself eggs, in a question when asking for the TV remote, debating philosophy on opposites sides of a metaphoric fence, pressed with a kiss into Combeferre’s neck, gasped against Combeferre’s lips during sex. It doesn’t sound right like this. “It would have been an accident.”

Jehan watches him move across the room, falling silent and contemplative, hands dropping from his hair and curling together in his lap instead. It takes him a while to finally speak again.

“Combeferre cares about you, Grantaire. I’ve seen how he looks at you,” At that Jehan smiles, tentative and happy, and Grantaire stops his pacing, watching Jehan with one arm pulled across his body, hand clutching at his elbow. “Though he’s a lot less obvious than you are. You’re not going to throw that away because of this.”

It’s not a question and it’s not aimed like one. They both know Grantaire’s in love with him, head over heels and it’s not fair at all. At least Jehan has the decency not to say it, not to voice the thing Grantaire refuses to put a name to out loud.

“He fucked up, R,” Jehan murmurs, shrugging one of his sharp shoulders. “I know he did, he probably knows he did, and I’m sorry.”

Beside the bed, Grantaire deflates, slowly, ever so slowly, until his shoulders are slumped. Quietly, he crawls back onto the bed and toward Jehan, lightly kissing the top of his head then bringing their foreheads back together. Jehan’s smiling, fingers curling into the back of Grantaire’s hair. 

“You’ll work it out,” Jehan reassures him, hand dropping to Grantaire’s neck when he pulls back a few inches, still keeping their faces level. Grantaire concedes with a nod, not needing to say anything else and Jehan smiles again at the gesture.

Grantaire’s not okay. He’s still angry, still tired, but Jehan has pulled the worse of the puss from the wound, and now only clean blood is running from it. It still hurts, but he’s clear of infection, no longer blinded by his emotions, although his vision is still unclear. He doesn’t know who’s to blame in this situation. Combeferre betrayed him but Grantaire made a promise he knew Combeferre would hate to keep. Combeferre betrayed him but Grantaire didn’t give his reasoning. Combeferre betrayed him and did Grantaire over react or was he in his right place? Grantaire doesn’t know, he doesn’t know at all, but he still wants Combeferre, even in the case of that betrayal.

The thought of them not being together hurts more than his loss of confidence in the doctor. 

Coaxing up a faint smile, Grantaire slides away from Jehan’s touch and collapses back against the sheets, hands folded over his stomach. “You’re a fucking angel, you know that?” Grantaire tells him, rubbing his fingers briefly over his eyebrow.

Jehan grins as he drops down beside him, pleasantly wicked. “Occasionally merciful, all powerful and deadly?”

“Sounds like you,” Grantaire shrugs, stretching out his limbs and looking at the ceiling. His thoughts, however, are on other places, well, mostly on Combeferre. Would he still be at the apartment or would he have gone home? Hell, would he have gone to _Enjolras_ for advice? (Something he really doesn’t want to think about, either). 

“Are you okay now?” Jehan murmurs, leaning over to touch Grantaire’s arm.

Turning his head to the side Grantaire offers him a grateful smile, a disguised thank you he knows Jehan will read easily. “I will be,” Grantaire informs him, voice a little raw. He rubs a hand across his face and sighs, gaze back on the ceiling. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Jehan replies, almost instantly. He adds, very, very quietly, some long moments later, “I don’t think Courfeyrac is.”

Grantaire turns his head in surprise at that, frowning in Jehan’s direction. He’d only seen Courfeyrac yesterday, who had been telling some elaborate story about a prank he’d pulled at work to Bahorel and Bossuet, grinning and pulling laughter from them like that was Courfeyrac’s real career. 

“For a person everyone calls an open book he’s a very good liar,” Jehan admits, distantly and mostly to himself. Grantaire reaches across the bed and pulls Jehan against his side. This time it’s Jehan who ends up with his face hidden in the other’s neck, breath soft and shallow. 

They drift away into their thoughts, Grantaire worrying over Combeferre, turning the thoughts over and over in his mind, and Jehan in another place Grantaire won’t ask about today.

When Grantaire leaves later on, after a shower and in borrowed clothes of Jehan’s, the day falling into night, Jehan smiles at him in the doorway and says, “You didn’t drink.”

“No,” Grantaire laughs, sudden and sharp, not believing that he’s sober. Hurting and not okay but actually _clean_. “How the fuck did that happen.”

-

It’s a forty-five minute walk back to Grantaire’s apartment, which builds up a less than comfortable ache in the back of his legs (so many hills) but at least it gives Grantaire time to clear his head. On the way out of Jehan’s place he sends Combeferre a text after debating it from the entire walk out of Jehan’s apartment block to past the local post office. It hadn’t said much, only “Are you still at my place?”. The only reply Grantaire had got back was “I’m here.” It probably didn’t only mean Combeferre’s location, knowing Combeferre, as the other loved his cryptic undertones that just drove Grantaire crazy.

Grantaire doesn’t bother texting back. 

He has a headache building beneath his eyes and he feels exhausted even though he’d slept at Jehan’s, and spent the rest of his time there generally sitting in one position. He doesn’t know how to feel. Grantaire’s calmer than he was, more in control, but it doesn’t mean his thoughts are quiet. In fact, they feel even more confused, muddled by Jehan’s arguments, darkened by his own second guessing. He still feels angry, he still feels slighted, but he’s too tired to want a fight.

He wants Combeferre in his arms, he wants his skin under his fingertips and he wants to mark Combeferre’s neck so he’s pulling at his collar constantly the next day, hoping no one on the ward will notice. 

Except he knows he can’t let this die, can’t pretend this didn’t happen and shrug it off. Grantaire’s _hurt_ and Combeferre isn’t forgiven. He still did what he did. 

The door’s open when he gets to the apartment, though he tries the key in the lock automatically and ends locking the fucking thing, then having to unlock it again to a jangle of keys and the protest of the handle. Well, if Combeferre doesn’t know he’s here already, he certainly does now. 

It’s quiet when he steps inside, uncomfortably quiet. Not raising his voice, or calling out to see if Combeferre’s near by, he dumps his bag of clothes on the floor and takes off his shoes, pushing them to the side where the shoes usually get thrown (and Combeferre rearranges into neat lines). 

He finds Combeferre on the sofa, a book placed down beside him and his posture perfect, tight and sat up right, his hands worrying over each other in his lap. He looks back at Grantaire evenly, in glasses rather than his contacts, and Grantaire can’t not notice how fucking tired Combeferre looks. He feels self-conscious under his gaze, and tugs at Jehan’s shirt which barely fits him, pulling it further down over the borrowed skinny jeans. 

He wants Combeferre to _fucking say something_ , except he doesn’t, just look up at Grantaire with an expression Grantaire doesn’t even begin to understand as Grantaire fidgets slightly on the spot, having no clue where or how to start. 

“Hey,” He finally settles with, softly, and knowing he sounds like a fucking idiot. _Hey_ , fucking _Hey_ , like he’d just popped back from the shops or got back from classes. Christ. 

Luckily, he feels less like a complete and utter twat when Combeferre replies with an equally soft, “Hey”, trying on a tentative yet worried smile. 

Grantaire sighs, looks away and rolls his shoulders. “So, I guess we need to talk.”

“Yeah,” Combeferre replies, and when Grantaire looks back the tightness in his body has eased a little bit, his shoulders drooping, hands relaxing slightly in his lap. “I think that would be best.”

Grantaire nods his head toward the space next to Combeferre, and just like that Combeferre is carefully placing the book on the coffee table, moving along so when Grantaire sits down there’s a definite gap between them. For at least a minute they sit in uncomfortable silence, during which Grantaire squirms restlessly in his skin, and ends up with his head in his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s scared Combeferre will touch him, place a hand on his hunched over back or slide his fingers down his arm and Grantaire will crumble into tiny pieces, shatter and dissolve in front of him. Except the touch never comes.

It’s Grantaire who breaks the silence, dropping his hands away from his face and resting his elbows on his knees, eyes on the boringly beige carpet. He can hear Combeferre breathing, inches away. “You broke your promise,” He states, trying to make it a fact rather than an accusation, but he can’t keep out the emotion in his voice as much as he wants to. Grantaire closes himself off as much as possible, but his body betrays him, it’s why he generally sticks to sarcasm, masking one emotion on top of another. Yet, he’s trying to keep calm, trying not to start a fight by saying something offhanded and dry, so the sense of betrayal does creep into his voice, does make his breath catch in his throat at this stupid, lovely fucking man who went and did that to him. 

Beside him, Combeferre’s quiet, his breath steady and a constant Grantaire feels himself clinging to as his own come out unsteady, as he waits for Combeferre’s response. “I know,” Combeferre returns, quietly. “I shouldn’t have done that, it wasn’t fair on you.”

Grantaire squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his hands against his eyes and taking a moment to himself before he even begins to try to respond to that. He wants to scream, _How fucking could you_ in Combeferre’s face. He wants a lot of things. (At one point he wanted Enjolras, which says something about Grantaire’s decision making when it comes to wanting things.)

“Grantaire,” Combeferre says beside him and it’s enough to make Grantaire sniff a hard breath through his nose, drop his hands and glance sideways to where Combeferre has edged forward on the couch, watching Grantaire with worry. He can feel the tears in his eyes, there but not over flowing, and he quickly rubs his hands over his eyes, dropping his gaze back to the floor instead.

“You could have asked me,” Grantaire mutters down toward the ground, before pulling himself up a little, curling his arms around his body and looking at the blank TV instead. “Was it really that fucking hard to just tell me you wanted to tell him? Would it have really taken that much to say ‘Hey Grantaire I’d quite like to tell Enjolras about us?’” He catches his breath, trying to check the bitterness. “I wouldn’t have liked it, I wouldn’t have wanted it, but I would have said yes, you know.” 

Grantaire glances at Combeferre, not quick enough to catch his expression, and not anywhere near his face. He glimpses his chest instead, like a coward. “All you had to do was ask.”

“I know, and I should have,” Combeferre replies, voice low. “I thought I was doing… Something that would help both of us feel more at ease, but it was selfish of me to do it without telling you.”

Grantaire shuts his eyes, briefly. He wants to be honest, like Combeferre. He wants to say _Enjolras terrifies me - what he could do to us, what he could do to this relationship_ , except he doesn’t. He wants to explain but it’s too much for him, always, always too much. 

Instead, he laughs, a quiet, unsteady sound and shakes his head. “Yeah, it doesn’t make me feel at ease at all,” He admits, not as sour as he could be, picking at a loose thread on Jehan’s jeans.

“I don’t really feel much better, either, to be honest,” Combeferre confesses in return, making Grantaire glance over at him. A small, sad smile ghosts Combeferre’s lips, falling a little when Grantaire looks over. “Funny how that works.”

They’re closer now, shifting toward one another without really realising it. Grantaire tugs his fingers through his hair then manages to look Combeferre in the eye for a moment, but not long enough to murmur, skittish and hesitant, “Can I touch you?”

“Please,” Combeferre rasps out in a tone which comes out a more than little broken. 

Now, Grantaire looks at him, heart clenching in his chest and raising his eyes to his face slowly. Combeferre meets the look, still appearing tired but also relieved. Grantaire tries a smile for him, nervous and tight and Combeferre mimics it, both of them on opposite sides of the situation, both raw and sorry. Gently, Grantaire lifts his hand to Combeferre’s jaw and drags the pad of his thumb carefully over Combeferre’s cheek, feeling his warm, warm skin beneath his touch, watching Combeferre’s eyelashes flutter, the subtle way he leans into the movement. 

They scoot closer together quickly, a subdued sort of desperateness, until their knees are bumping into one another and it feels better, closer, not enough. Combeferre’s leaning forward and half muttering, “Can I-“ and Grantaire’s saying “Yes, yes, yes,” until Combeferre’s arms are around him and his face is buried in Combeferre’s shirt, breathing in the lingering smell of aftershave he always wears and just his smell, just _Combeferre_. Meanwhile, Combeferre has a hand buried in Grantaire’s hair, tugging just the painful side of tight in a way which makes Grantaire’s heart swell in the knowledge that it’s all for him. That Combeferre’s careful composure, that always patient, never shaken Combeferre, has fallen away and now he’s kissing throaty “I’m sorry”’s into his hair as Grantaire’s trying to keep up, sliding greedy hands down Combeferre’s chest and muttering back, “It’s alright”, “It’s fine”, “I’m here”. 

Maybe it isn’t all true. Maybe Grantaire isn’t alright, and it isn’t fine, but he is here, he is trying to repair this thing when once upon a time Grantaire would be running the fuck away. It says something, it means something.

Grantaire somehow ends up straddling Combeferre’s hips, hands twisting in Combeferre’s shirt and Combeferre’s glasses discarded in aid of other activites. They kiss like they don’t know how to, both undecided on whether or not to be soft or brutal, and end up ricocheting between the two. Soft, tender kisses becoming sharp on a teeth bite, hard kisses becoming gentle after a intake of breath. Combeferre’s hands grip Grantaire’s hips as Grantaire runs his hands beneath his shirt, needing the skin, the contact. Then Grantaire’s hips are aching forward into Combeferre’s own, and there’s friction, desperate perfect friction between their jeans and Combeferre’s gasping, head tipped back against the sofa as Grantaire takes the opportunity to dig his teeth into the slender line of his neck. 

Neither of them last long, digging their fingers into whatever part of the other they have a perch on, grinding their hips together like lusty teenagers and coming with their jeans still buttoned up, their names on each other’s mouths and their fingernails in one another’s skin. Afterward, Grantaire leans his damp forehead against Combeferre’s, relishing the sound of their pants, and the post-orgasm glow, and beginning to smile something real because they both have come coating the insides of their boxers right now and it’s fucking pathetic but Grantaire doesn’t _care_. Combeferre is real and solid beneath his hands, his chest rising and falling, his heart beat hammering through the thin material of his shirt, rumpled from the abuse of Grantaire’s hands, and the best part is Combeferre’s smiling too.

He leans up and shares it with Grantaire, pressing them closer together, their noses touching. Grantaire slides his fingers through the back of Combeferre’s hair, one hand still braced against his chest, as Combeferre strokes his hip, his side, and Grantaire knows he’s documenting all the muscles Grantaire can’t name but Combeferre can. Combeferre had named them all once, using Grantaire’s body as his subject, touching the bones with his fingers then with his mouth as though he’d been ticking them off on his own private checklist (with Grantaire trying his best to fill him in on his previously broken bones - his collarbones when he was a child, his left arm, twice, his right leg, almost his nose). Combeferer had gotten lost in off tangent rants about certain functions of the body and Grantaire had loved ever minute of it, seeing Combeferre slowly turn into an excitable puppy, sharing information like it was a secret rather than a lesson contained in every medical textbook that every poor med student would one day have to learn. 

Grantaire knows this isn’t over, he understands that it’s not okay and that some frantic sofa frottage isn’t going to solve all of their problems. He knows one day Combeferre will ask more about Enjolras, will try to broach the topic about why it hurts so much, and Grantaire probably still won’t be ready (will still probably lash out and get themselves into another mess). He knows that he won’t trust Combeferre as he had done. He knows that after tonight, after the relief of being in one another’s hands and under one another’s mouths they’ll be awkward around each other, walking on egg shells, and Grantaire will pretend everything’s alright when it’s not (not like it ever fucking is).

He knows that one day he might pick up a bottle again.

But tonight Combeferre’s hands are warm and his mouth is warm as he places one finally, long and lingering kiss to Grantaire’s mouth before Grantaire eases himself off Combeferre’s lap to walk toward the bedroom. 

They don’t sleep for a long while, reclaiming one another’s bodies instead. They run their fingers down one another’s hips (mine), and trace their collarbones with their fingertips (mine), and kiss their shoulders (mine), and curl their fingers together, and stroke a thumb down the pale inside of a thigh, and bite marks into one another’s skin (Combeferre let’s him mark his neck without comment, lets him bite down possessive and violent with only a choked down gasp, even though they both know he has work sometime tomorrow), and touches the flat plane of the other’s stomach, and lets their legs intertwine beneath the sheets (mine, mine, mine, mine, mine).

They don’t sleep for a long while.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave all blood sacrifices [here](http://benshaws.tumblr.com/).


End file.
